This book addresses questions surrounding the feasibility of a global approach to ethical governance of science and technology. The emergence and rapid spread of nanotechnology offers a test case for how the world might act when confronted with a technology that could transform the global economy and provide solutions to issues such as pollution, while potentially creating new environmental and health risks. The author compares ethical issues identified by stakeholders in China and the EU about the rapid introduction of this potentially transformative technology – a fitting framework for an exploration of global agency. The study explores the discourse ethics and participatory Technology Assessment (pTA) inspired by the work of Jürgen Habermas to argue that different views can be universally recognized and agreed upon, perhaps within an ideal global community of communication. The book offers a developed discourse model, utilizing virtue ethics as well as the work of Taylor, Beck, Korsgaard and others on identity formation, as a way forward in the context of global ethics. The author seeks to develop new vocabularies of comparison, to discover shared aspects of identity and to achieve, hopefully, an ‘intercultural personhood’ that may lead to a global ethics. The book offers a useful guide for researchers on methods for advancing societal understanding of science and technology. The author addresses a broad audience, from philosophers, ethicists and scientists, to the interested general reader. For the layperson, one chapter surveys nanoissues as depicted in fiction and another offers a view of how an ordinary citizen can act as a global agent of change in ethics.

This book addresses questions surrounding the feasibility of a global approach to ethical governance of science and technology. The emergence and rapid spread of nanotechnology offers a test case for how the world might act when confronted with a technology that could transform the global economy and provide solutions to issues such as pollution, while potentially creating new environmental and health risks. The author compares ethical issues identified by stakeholders in China and the EU about the rapid introduction of this potentially transformative technology - a fitting framework for an exploration of global agency. The study explores the discourse ethics and participatory Technology Assessment (pTA) inspired by the work of Jurgen Habermas to argue that different views can be universally recognized and agreed upon, perhaps within an ideal global community of communication. The book offers a developed discourse model, utilizing virtue ethics as well as the work of Taylor, Beck, Korsgaard and others on identity formation, as a way forward in the context of global ethics. The author seeks to develop new vocabularies of comparison, to discover shared aspects of identity and to achieve, hopefully, an 'intercultural personhood' that may lead to a global ethics. The book offers a useful guide for researchers on methods for advancing societal understanding of science and technology. The author addresses a broad audience, from philosophers, ethicists and scientists, to the interested general reader. For the layperson, one chapter surveys nanoissues as depicted in fiction and another offers a view of how an ordinary citizen can act as a global agent of change in ethics.

Liudmilla Petrushevskaia is one of the best known writers in Russia today, recognized for her versatility as a dramatist, scriptwriter, and author of harrowing contemporary stories and even of fairytales. Acclaimed for he shocking portraits of the pain and loss that distinguish the life of women in Russia and the old Soviet Union, Petrushevskaia has also created texts notable for their scandalous humor and vibrant plasticity of form.

This study analyses her use of genres within the context of an overall description of her ouevre. Her texts deal with stories struggling to be told even in today's Russia. Her characters are all storytellers, but the truths they attempt to express are often too terrible to be voiced aloud, and their tales are ultimately told from within a vast silence that threatens to engulf the narrative.

One of Pushkin's most famous works, "Eugene Onegin" has been called an "enclyclopaedia of Russian life", a definition which suggests the mass of ideas, impressions, thoughts and possibilities to be found in the story of the doomed love of two members of Russian high society in the 1830s. This study aims to offer an up-to-date guide to the text and to the critical debate, as well as providing easy-to-follow "readings". It takes a fresh look at its themes, ideas and intricacies, and suggests how scholars and non-specialists alike may gain greater understanding of Pushkin's work.